My deepest fear is not of being alone. Put me somewhere by myself with a few blank sheets of paper, a pen, and maybe my newly acquired ipod, and I can while the hours away writing down my thoughts and drawing through my emotions. I've always been a rather slow moving creature. Get me some books and the whole day could pass in what feels like half the time.
Besides, I'm never really alone. For one thing my sister is always around, and as angry as she makes me sometimes, she is someone I can be completely myself with. But say she goes away to college, or (I shudder to think it) dies prematurely. Hard as that would be, I'd still have God. With Jesus, no matter how messed up I am, he is always there- caring, understanding, accepting me.
And what if I were an atheist and didn't believe in God? I'm sure I could entertain myself in the private world of thoughts and ideas and my inflated ego would keep me company. Not that all atheists are egotistical and arrogant, but they often hold a tone of condescension towards those who profess their faith.
'Oh you still believe in God? You think that he created you and loves you? How droll!'
'You're putting a band-aid on teddy to cover his boo boo? Adorable!'
No, what I'm really scared of is falling short of my full potential. Scared that my failure will prove something about me - the even deeper fear that I am not worth much, there's nothing special about me. I am an insignificant speck whose life (and death) does not matter a whit. Fear wants to control my brain and shrink me down to nothing. To box me in and close off all other options.
There's too much to do- too many responsibilities. If only life was as simple as a Copeland song with its lullaby-like rhythms and vocals that surround me like a feather blanket. His voice lands on my cheeks with a whisper, and I'm a lone figure standing in the night while snowflakes quietly cover me.
I need life to slow down. I wish the calm that I feel with my eyes closed, sipping warm tea, and Aaron singing in my ears could last all the time. I wouldn't mind being a dormant seed, or a hibernating frog.
Merriam-Webster defines fear as the emotion which arises in the presence or threat of danger. In a different context, fear means to have a respectful or reverential awe towards something or someone.
11/27/07
11/6/07
Gendered Language (this is why I can't stand chivalry)
Most of these thoughts are taken word for word from an article by Laurel Richardson. ®
In terms of grammar and semantic structure, women do not have a fully autonomous, independent existence; they are part of man. The language is not divided into male and female with distinct conjugations and declensions, as many other languages are. Rather, women are included under the generic man. Grammar books specify that the pronoun he can be used generically to mean he or she, and the same idea applies for the word Man.Ex: Man the oars.One small step for man, one giant step for mankind.
Societal rules complete the grammatical presumption of inclusivity. When two people are pronounced 'man and wife', Miss Susan Jones changes her entire name to Mrs. Robert Gordeon. In each of these correct usages, women are a part of man; they do not exist autonomously. Research has shown that when the generic 'man' is used, people visualize men, not women. "Man" therefore, suggests not humanity but rather male images. Over one's lifetime, an educated American will be exposed to the prescriptive 'he' more than a million times. One consequence of this is the exclusion of women in the visualization, imagination, and thought of males and females. Most likely, this linguistic practice perpetuates in men their feelings of dominance over and responsibility for women, feelings that interfere with the development of equality in relationships.
A second problem this causes is that it creates ideas of different career paths for men and women. "In actual practice, our pronoun usage perpetuates different personality attributes and career aspirations for men and women." What jobs do we normally associate with women? Nurses, secretaries, and elementary school teachers are invariably referred to as she; while doctors, engineers, electricians, and presidents as he. Language is subtley influential; I remember a teacher was talking about a doctor without specifying whether it was a male or female, and in my mind, I automatically thought of a man. Scary stuff.
"Language has tremendous power to shape attitudes and influence behavior."
In a faculty discussion of the problems of acquiring new staff, all architects, engineers, security officers, faculty, and computer programmers were referred to as he; secretaries and file clerks were referred to as she. One researcher found that speakers consistently use 'he' when the referent has a high-status occupation, but shift to 'she' when the occupations have lower status. Even our choice of sex ascriptions to nonhuman objects subtly reinforces different personalities for male and females. The small (e.g., kittens), the graceful (e.g., poetry), the unpredictable (e.g., the fates), the nurturant (e.g., the church, the school),and that which is owned and/or controlled by men (e.g., boats, cars, governments, nations) represent the feminine, whereas that which is a controlling forceful power in and of itself (e.g., God, Satan, tiger) primarily represents the masculine. In one college, the men's teams are called the Bearcats, and the women's teams are called the Bearkittens.
Even more interesting, the use of the generic 'he', has all the traits of a "highly effective propaganda technique". It has, -Frequent repitition-Early age of acquisition (before age 6)-Covertness ('he' is not thought of as propaganda)-Use by high prestige sources(including university texts and professors)-Indirectness (presented as though it were a matter of common knowledge.)
As a result, the prescriptive affects females' sense of life options and feelings of well-being. For example, Adamsky (1981) found that women's sense of power and importance was enhanced when the prescriptive 'he' was replaced by 'she'.
Third, linguistic practice defines females as immature, incomplete, and incapable, and males as mature, complete, and competent. The words man and woman imply sexual and human maturity. However, common speech, organizational titles, public addresses, and bathroom doors frequently disignate the women in question as ladies. Simply contrast the different connotations of lady and woman in the following common phrases: Luck, be a lady (woman) tonight.Barbara's a little lady (woman).Ladies' (Women's) Air Corps.
In the first two examples, the use of lady desexualizes the contextual meaning of woman. The last use of lady is trivializing to the whole title. The male equivalent, lord, is never used, and its synonym, gentleman, is used infrequently. Along the same lines, men are rarely called boys, while women of all ages may be called girls. Grown females "play bridge with the girls" and indulge in "girl talk". They are encouraged to remain childlike, and the implication is that they are basically immature and without power.
Fourth, women are defined in terms of their sexual disirability (to men); men are defined in terms of their sexual prowess (over women). Most slang words in reference to women refer to their sexual desirability to men (e.g., dog, fox, broad, chick). Slang about men refers to their sexual prowess over women (e.g., dude, stud, hunk). The fewer examples given for men is not an oversight. An analysis of sexual slang listed more than 1,000 words and phrases that derogate women sexually but found "nowhere near this multitude for describing men". Similarly, Farmer and Henley list 500 synonyms for prostitute, and only 65 for whoremonger. There are 220 terms for a sexually promiscuous woman and only 22 for a sexually promiscuous man. Being sexually attractive to males is culturally condoned for women, and being sexually powerful is approved for males. This reminds me of Halloween which recently passed. How many young women did I see this and previous Halloweens dressed in 'sexified' costumes? (Basically the sexy versions of general themes like pirate, dancer, occupations) My friend's boy friend dressed up as a pimp last year. If this is not a clearer proof of Richardson's statement, then I don't know what is. I'm sure there are exceptions. There always are.
Furthermore, we often find sexual connotations associated with words applied to women when they are supposed to be neutral. I'll just put one example here, consider the difference in connotation of the following expressions:
It's easy.He's easy.She's easy.
In the first, we assume that something is "easy to do"; in the second, we might assume a professor is an "easy grader" or a man is "easygoing". But when we read "she's easy," the connotation is "she's an easy lay".
There's two more very good points in her article, but by now I am really tired or reading and retyping. So I will just copy and paste what I have and hope that others will find it insightful also. The entire title of her article is, Gender Stereotyping in the English Language.
English isn't the only language with this problem; in my class about China, we are learning about the original pictographs that led up to the formation of chinese characters. For the symbol for 'woman', it showed a crude kneeling figure with arms held in a submissive position. The pictograph for 'man' combined a field with a farm tool, which translates into strength and power. Also, in the olden days, male children were higher valued than female, during one time period, there wasn't even a word for daughter, when one did have a female child, it was called 'not a son'. Crazy stuff isn't it? This is why I can't stand chivalry. It's just another form of sexism disguised to look kind.
In terms of grammar and semantic structure, women do not have a fully autonomous, independent existence; they are part of man. The language is not divided into male and female with distinct conjugations and declensions, as many other languages are. Rather, women are included under the generic man. Grammar books specify that the pronoun he can be used generically to mean he or she, and the same idea applies for the word Man.Ex: Man the oars.One small step for man, one giant step for mankind.
Societal rules complete the grammatical presumption of inclusivity. When two people are pronounced 'man and wife', Miss Susan Jones changes her entire name to Mrs. Robert Gordeon. In each of these correct usages, women are a part of man; they do not exist autonomously. Research has shown that when the generic 'man' is used, people visualize men, not women. "Man" therefore, suggests not humanity but rather male images. Over one's lifetime, an educated American will be exposed to the prescriptive 'he' more than a million times. One consequence of this is the exclusion of women in the visualization, imagination, and thought of males and females. Most likely, this linguistic practice perpetuates in men their feelings of dominance over and responsibility for women, feelings that interfere with the development of equality in relationships.
A second problem this causes is that it creates ideas of different career paths for men and women. "In actual practice, our pronoun usage perpetuates different personality attributes and career aspirations for men and women." What jobs do we normally associate with women? Nurses, secretaries, and elementary school teachers are invariably referred to as she; while doctors, engineers, electricians, and presidents as he. Language is subtley influential; I remember a teacher was talking about a doctor without specifying whether it was a male or female, and in my mind, I automatically thought of a man. Scary stuff.
"Language has tremendous power to shape attitudes and influence behavior."
In a faculty discussion of the problems of acquiring new staff, all architects, engineers, security officers, faculty, and computer programmers were referred to as he; secretaries and file clerks were referred to as she. One researcher found that speakers consistently use 'he' when the referent has a high-status occupation, but shift to 'she' when the occupations have lower status. Even our choice of sex ascriptions to nonhuman objects subtly reinforces different personalities for male and females. The small (e.g., kittens), the graceful (e.g., poetry), the unpredictable (e.g., the fates), the nurturant (e.g., the church, the school),and that which is owned and/or controlled by men (e.g., boats, cars, governments, nations) represent the feminine, whereas that which is a controlling forceful power in and of itself (e.g., God, Satan, tiger) primarily represents the masculine. In one college, the men's teams are called the Bearcats, and the women's teams are called the Bearkittens.
Even more interesting, the use of the generic 'he', has all the traits of a "highly effective propaganda technique". It has, -Frequent repitition-Early age of acquisition (before age 6)-Covertness ('he' is not thought of as propaganda)-Use by high prestige sources(including university texts and professors)-Indirectness (presented as though it were a matter of common knowledge.)
As a result, the prescriptive affects females' sense of life options and feelings of well-being. For example, Adamsky (1981) found that women's sense of power and importance was enhanced when the prescriptive 'he' was replaced by 'she'.
Third, linguistic practice defines females as immature, incomplete, and incapable, and males as mature, complete, and competent. The words man and woman imply sexual and human maturity. However, common speech, organizational titles, public addresses, and bathroom doors frequently disignate the women in question as ladies. Simply contrast the different connotations of lady and woman in the following common phrases: Luck, be a lady (woman) tonight.Barbara's a little lady (woman).Ladies' (Women's) Air Corps.
In the first two examples, the use of lady desexualizes the contextual meaning of woman. The last use of lady is trivializing to the whole title. The male equivalent, lord, is never used, and its synonym, gentleman, is used infrequently. Along the same lines, men are rarely called boys, while women of all ages may be called girls. Grown females "play bridge with the girls" and indulge in "girl talk". They are encouraged to remain childlike, and the implication is that they are basically immature and without power.
Fourth, women are defined in terms of their sexual disirability (to men); men are defined in terms of their sexual prowess (over women). Most slang words in reference to women refer to their sexual desirability to men (e.g., dog, fox, broad, chick). Slang about men refers to their sexual prowess over women (e.g., dude, stud, hunk). The fewer examples given for men is not an oversight. An analysis of sexual slang listed more than 1,000 words and phrases that derogate women sexually but found "nowhere near this multitude for describing men". Similarly, Farmer and Henley list 500 synonyms for prostitute, and only 65 for whoremonger. There are 220 terms for a sexually promiscuous woman and only 22 for a sexually promiscuous man. Being sexually attractive to males is culturally condoned for women, and being sexually powerful is approved for males. This reminds me of Halloween which recently passed. How many young women did I see this and previous Halloweens dressed in 'sexified' costumes? (Basically the sexy versions of general themes like pirate, dancer, occupations) My friend's boy friend dressed up as a pimp last year. If this is not a clearer proof of Richardson's statement, then I don't know what is. I'm sure there are exceptions. There always are.
Furthermore, we often find sexual connotations associated with words applied to women when they are supposed to be neutral. I'll just put one example here, consider the difference in connotation of the following expressions:
It's easy.He's easy.She's easy.
In the first, we assume that something is "easy to do"; in the second, we might assume a professor is an "easy grader" or a man is "easygoing". But when we read "she's easy," the connotation is "she's an easy lay".
There's two more very good points in her article, but by now I am really tired or reading and retyping. So I will just copy and paste what I have and hope that others will find it insightful also. The entire title of her article is, Gender Stereotyping in the English Language.
English isn't the only language with this problem; in my class about China, we are learning about the original pictographs that led up to the formation of chinese characters. For the symbol for 'woman', it showed a crude kneeling figure with arms held in a submissive position. The pictograph for 'man' combined a field with a farm tool, which translates into strength and power. Also, in the olden days, male children were higher valued than female, during one time period, there wasn't even a word for daughter, when one did have a female child, it was called 'not a son'. Crazy stuff isn't it? This is why I can't stand chivalry. It's just another form of sexism disguised to look kind.
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